doing to the natural world. and yet we all need to eat. mm hm. and thanks to farming, almost all of us can sustain ourselves with decent amounts of food. why do you see this as such a problem? well, this is the great dilemma we face. i mean, it s notjust a question of seeing it as a problem, there is a huge weight of empirical evidence showing that farming is by far the greatest cause of habitat destruction, of wildlife loss, of extinction, of land use, which is perhaps the most important environmental metric of all, of soil degradation, of freshwater use, and one of the greatest causes of climate breakdown, of water pollution and of air pollution. so it s notjust a matter of opinion, this is the industry which comes top of the list of all damaging human activities. now, of course, we. stephen chuckles yes, except what you haven t mentioned there is that over that millennia, we humans have
showing that farming is by far the greatest cause of habitat destruction, of wildlife loss, of extinction, of land use, which is perhaps the most important environmental metric of all, of soil degradation, of freshwater use, and one of the greatest causes of climate breakdown, of water pollution and of air pollution. so it s notjust a matter of opinion, this is the industry which comes top of the list of all damaging human activities. now, of course, we. stephen chuckles yes, except what you haven t mentioned there is that over that millennia, we humans have figured out ways to feed, successfully feed, more and more and more people. mm, yeah. food production is a success story. absolutely. it s been an astonishing success. in fact, almost too much of a success. we produce roughly twice as many calories as we need, but a huge amount of that is wasted by being channelled through livestock, which is a very inefficient use of calories, or biofuels. and then some of it is just wasted. so we
showing that farming is by far the greatest cause of habitat destruction, of wildlife loss, of extinction, of land use, which is perhaps the most important environmental metric of all, of soil degradation, of freshwater use, and one of the greatest causes of climate breakdown, of water pollution and of air pollution. so it s notjust a matter of opinion, this is the industry which comes top of the list of all damaging human activities. now, of course, we. stephen chuckles yes, except what you haven t mentioned there is that over that millennia, we humans have figured out ways to feed, successfully feed, more and more and more people. mm, yeah. food production is a success story. absolutely. it s been an astonishing success. in fact, almost too much of a success. we produce roughly twice as many calories as we need, but a huge amount of that is wasted by being channelled through livestock, which is a very inefficient use of calories, or biofuels. and then some
george monbiot, welcome to hardtalk. thanks, stephen. you have been a campaigner and writer on environmental issues for decades, warning about the toxic relationship between human beings and our planet. i just wonder how you prioritise? how do you decide where to focus? mm, it s very hard. i mean, every week when i m writing a column for the guardian, for instance, or making a video, i have a choice of about 20 different topics that i could latch onto. it s very frightening. i mean, to be environmentally aware, to have an environmental education is, as the great writer aldo leopold put it, to live in a world of wounds. you re surrounded by grief, you re surrounded by the pain of what you re seeing,
of freshwater use, and one of the greatest causes of climate breakdown, of water pollution and of air pollution. so it s notjust a matter of opinion, this is the industry which comes top of the list of all damaging human activities. now, of course, we. stephen chuckles yes, except what you haven t mentioned there is that over that millennia, we humans have figured out ways to feed, successfully feed, more and more and more people. mm, yeah. food production is a success story. absolutely. it s been an astonishing success. in fact, almost too much of a success. we produce roughly twice as many calories as we need, but a huge amount of that is wasted by being channelled through livestock, which is a very inefficient use of calories, or biofuels. and then some of it is just wasted. so we ve got this tremendously productive system, but it deeply threatens earth systems on which we also depend entirely for our survival, and which itself depends upon. agriculture depends